The Sound of Fear
by Final Authority
Summary: Not long after NiGHTS is imprisoned, Reala and Jackle have a conversation. [ONE-SHOT]


A/N So with the announcement of the NiGHTS cameos in **Sonic: The Lost Worlds**, I felt like writing a NiGHTS one-shot. Enjoy and thanks for reading!

Disclaimer: NiGHTS into Dreams is the property of Sega.

* * *

"You killed them."

"Yep!" Jackle's grin hovered like a crescent moon. A long time ago, NiGHTS suggested he had been the inspiration for the Cheshire Cat. Reala never cared much for human books, but he liked the way NiGHTS read them. He would act out all of the scenes, flitting from character to character, each sentence read as gracefully as his flying…

He cut off the memory. Thoughts about NiGHTS were the same as books with talking cats.

Silly and useless.

Instead, he turned his attention towards the mangled bodies of the Third-Levels. The blood stained the green grass of Nightopia and -though he would not admit it- he rather liked the color. "You had explicit orders to discipline them."

"They look pretty disciplined to me!"

"I don't not appreciate being toyed with, Jackle." He glared at the Second-Level. "Nightmarens- even third-levels- require a significant amount of energy for Master Wizeman to create them. It is more prudent to discipline them or, if necessary, rewrite their consciousness."

"Rewrite their consciousness." Jackle said, reclining on his invisible limbs. "I wonder how many times you've asked Wizeman to do that to _me_?"

Reala paused. "More than several." He admitted. "But you are changing the subject. Why did you disobey me?"

"I like to rip things apart. And I like when they scream." Jackle began to pluck blades of grass like a small child, ripping off a grasshopper's wings. "Why don't we ever kill visitors?"

"They are of no use to us dead."

"Now that's Wizeman's answer. What's _your_ answer, sir?"

As Reala thought, he gazed at the floating wind mills, hovering just above the green grass. NiGHTS used to perch on the edge of a blade and ride until it tossed him over. At first Reala would always fly over in a panic, only to find NiGHTS on the grass, laughing. Later, he learned to just watch.

"I enjoy more subtle pain." Reala finally said. "Have you ever ripped out a heart, Jackle?"

"Sure! Ate one too."

"Tell me, how did your victim feel after that?"

"Uhh, I doubt he was feelin' much of anything."

"Precisely." Reala gestured to the bodies of the two nightmarens. "The dead do not feel, Jackle. Nor do they dream. A creature who does not feel or dream does not know fear. Only the living are afraid; they alone are capable of suffering. … Am I not entertaining you enough?"

Jackle, now bored with the grass, began ripping off the petals of a flower. One by one, the petals collected on the ground like a pool of tear-drops. "I think the whole idea is stupid." He muttered, "Ripping out a heart is way more painful than breaking one, you know?"

"Ripping out a heart is pain beyond pain, to be certain, but the suffering is short-lived. Now a broken heart, that is an entirely different sort of pain." Reala knelt down, taking the fallen petals and watching them slip through his hand. "It is a longing that has no relief, a hunger that will never be satiated. It is a loss that will never be regained and the mere reminder of that thought poisons all other emotions. It is a living death. The suffering does not end."

Silence. Reala wondered, for a brief moment, if he imagined the sound of a distant flute or if it was a trick of his own mind.

"I hope you don't mind me saying this, sir." Jackle grinned his Cheshire grin. "But it sounds as though you speak from experience."

Reala smacked him.

Though he did not value physical suffering, on occasion it could be satisfying. He could feel the tips of his claws cut through Jackle's invisible skin and as Jackle collapsed, screaming, Reala examined the blood dripping down his fingers.

"I always wondered if you would bleed." He murmured. Jackle held up a trembling hand to look at the blood soaking his glove. "By the look on your face, I can see that you have always wondered this as well."

Reala drew back his hand again and the sun glinted off his blood-soaked claws. "N-no." Jackle whimpered.

"You are afraid, aren't you?" Reala permitted himself a grin. "Perhaps I shall tear out _your_ heart. What do you say?"

"Don't, please!"

"You were so enthusiastic about it before! Why the sudden change of heart? Could it be-" He gave a mock gasp. "Why, you've never felt _pain_ before?"

Jackle said nothing but trembled beneath the shade of the tree.

"You are like an ignorant child. You do not know pain, because you have never felt it! You know nothing of suffering, because you've never suffered. I know pain. I have suffered. And until you know pain, you do not know fear."

"Please." Jackle cried.

Reala lowered his hand, but not his icy gaze. "I have been _afraid_. It does not shame me for I am a nightmaren. Fear is my master. And He has taught me well."

And he floated away, leaving Jackle sobbing under the tree. But as he went, he heard the flute again- playing a melancholy song that danced along the wind and windmills. As it trilled he felt a faint stirring in his heart and the echoes of painful emotions that always haunted him.

_That_, Reala thought, _is what fear sounds like_.


End file.
